AHRQ Community Forum

This project ended in December 2013.

The purpose of the AHRQ Community Forum, funded initially under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), is to improve and expand public and stakeholder engagement in research supported by AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program. Community Forum activities seek to:

Stakeholder Input

AHRQ engages stakeholders at all stages of research to ensure that the EHC Program addresses relevant and important issues, and that findings are used to support evidence-based health care. Stakeholders contribute by:

Outreach to engage key clinician groups more actively in the EHC Program, including the AHRQ Evidence-Based Care (EBC) Challenge for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants practicing in retail settings.

Developing tools and resources to support patients, consumers, clinicians and others to provide input to EHC Program research.

Public Input

The views and values of the American public shape the way in which research findings can be used to improve health. AHRQ’s efforts to gain improved insight into these views focus on deliberative methods, a set of public consultation approaches well suited for exploring complex questions. Deliberative methods allow participants to learn in depth about a societal issue, explore diverse perspectives, and refine their views; they give decisionmakers insights based on informed and considered opinions.

The Deliberative Methods Demonstration developed, fielded, and evaluated four distinct types of deliberative approaches. The demonstration convened 76 groups and more than 1,000 participants, including members of several AHRQ priority populations (Hispanics, African-American women, and the elderly). Participants deliberated on the use of evidence in health care decisionmaking. The study is the most comprehensive evaluation of deliberative methods to date, and provides insights regarding an issue central to AHRQ’s research.

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) is the Contractor for the Community Forum. Subcontractors are the Center for Medical Technology Policy, the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, AcademyHealth, the Center for Healthcare Decisions, and Consumers’ Union.